It`s More Like A Labor Of Love When Sammy Cahn`s Performing

In the cozy confines of the Wellington Theatre, Sammy Cahn has found an ideal spot for the unique parlor entertainment he calls ``Sammy Cahn In Person: Words and Music.``

With its 500 seats extending three-fourths of the way around and right up to the lip of its wide thrust stage, the Wellington offers Cahn a chance to come into direct contact with his audience so that he can sing, spiel and schmooze with them to his heart`s content.

A great storyteller, he comes skipping on in his snappy tuxedo, eager to roll out his vintage anecdotes from Broadway, Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley; and before long, just after he has mentioned that he has been writing lyrics for about 60 years, he has the crowd happily singing along with him in one of his golden oldies.

Later, after dozens of reminiscences and scores of songs, he walks up one aisle, shakes hands with as many folks as he can reach and settles back to let the three singers he has brought with him run through a medley of Sammy`s Greatest Hits, each one applauded by the customers as they recognize the notes and words of such best-sellers as ``I Should Care,`` ``Let It Snow`` and

``Time After Time.``

And then, of course, he ends the show with a cheerleading sing-along of

``My Kind of Town,`` which leads to the inevitable standing ovation.

It`s really an amazing feat. He can barely croak out a tune, and he can play the piano, he cheerily informs us, only in the key of F. But, boy, can that kid plug a song.

Head flung back, eyes closed in bliss, arms outstretched for the high notes, he bleats out his lyrics with the zest of a man who just loves his line of work-and loves to tell people about it.

He carefully notes that in songwriting, a word is only as good as the note it sits on, and he pays due tribute to Jule Styne, Jimmy Van Heusen, Nicholas Brodszky and all the other composers with whom he worked.

Amid all the tales about Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and the rest, he also conducts a chatty show biz seminar on his life and work. A New York boy who went west, he began working in musical shorts when the talkies first came in, and by 1942, he had his first Academy Award nomination (for ``It Seems I Heard That Song Before``). In all, he received 26 nominations and four Oscars for his lyrics, and in his show, he sings almost every one of them.

Supporting him are his poker-faced pianist Harper MacKay, and his smiling singers Joie Gallo, Alisa Gyse and Raymond Saar, all specialists in holding on to a note for the big finish.

But this is still definitely the Sammy Cahn show, and quite a happy show it is.

As he suggests in some of his stories, his work could be repetitious, corny and wide open to parody (``Teach Me Tonight`` being a particularly bright example of banality). But he had the benefit of luck and pluck, and, as he says, with a sly wink, he did it all ``for the fun of it, for the pleasure of it, for the profit of it.``